Bestiary (26 page)
Authors: Robert Masello
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers
“We trained together,” Rafik said.
“Where?”
Rafik shrugged. “Baghdad.” Both of his eyes were black and blue, and his nose, slightly askew now, was clearly broken.
“So you must have grown close. Training together, enjoying all the special privileges that only Saddam could provide.”
Al-Kalli gave him a conspiratorial smile, and for a split second Rafik seemed to acknowledge it with a smile of his own. Al-Kalli was delighted.
“The others,” he said, “were all from Tikrit originally. Were you?”
“Yes.”
Saddam had always relied upon his fellow Sunnis for his most important tasks.
“And the man with the mustache,” al-Kalli said. “Also from Tikrit?”
Rafik stopped talking.
“Who served the soup to my wife,” al-Kalli said helpfully, though there could be no confusion about whom he was referring to.
“I didn’t know him.”
Right back where they’d started, al-Kalli thought with disgust. And he didn’t disguise it. He turned to Jakob, standing with his hands folded, and with his chin gestured at a paint bucket lying by the gate.
Jakob lifted the lid off the bucket, walked to the gate of the enclosure, and threw the contents of the bucket all over Rafik.
For a moment, it might have been mistaken for red paint. But then the smell came—the smell of fresh blood.
Rafik dropped the cigarette and stared down at his blood-soaked jumpsuit.
From the next enclosure, the yelping suddenly surged into a series of frenzied barks. From even farther off, a low growl arose. On a perch high above, a huge bird loudly screeched.
Rafik’s eyes went wide with the sudden cacophony—and the shock from his drenching.
“The man with the mustache,” al-Kalli said, his words now as hard as flint.
“I tell you, I didn’t know him!”
Al-Kalli pressed the release button for the inner gate, which opened wide. Rafik was now exposed to whatever lay within the enclosure.
And he knew it.
“What was his name?” al-Kalli asked.
Rafik looked frantically around the large enclosure, taking in the wading pool, the stunted trees, the low shrubs . . . the broken bones, covered with dust.
What lived in here?
What lived in here?
“I can close the gate again, as easily as I opened it,” al-Kalli said.
A lion? Rafik thought. A tiger? All the way in back, he saw a cavernous stony grotto, raised a few feet off the hard-packed earth.
“All I need is a name.”
What harm could it do? Rafik thought. He could give him a name—any name at all—and it might buy him time. But what if al-Kalli guessed that he was lying? What if, the clever bastard, he already knew the name, or had his suspicions, and was only waiting for Rafik to confirm them?
From within the lair, Rafik thought he saw a shadow move. Something was awake now. Something was alive.
Al-Kalli saw it, too, and was greatly relieved.
There was a long, soft sound of exhalation. A creature was struggling to its feet. And sniffing—Rafik could hear the echo from inside the cave as it sniffed the air appreciatively.
He looked down at himself. Covered in blood. And his hands flew at the zipper of the jumpsuit.
Al-Kalli laughed and glanced over at Jakob to share the joke. “He’s smarter than the last one.”
Rafik stripped off the suit as fast as he could, wadded it into a ball, and hurled it away; unfurling in the air, it caught on the branches of the nearest tree and hung down like a banner.
There was a growling from the cave.
“It’s Ahmed!” Rafik cried out. “His name was Ahmed!”
“That’s a start,” al-Kalli said, suspending his hand above the control panel that could open—or close—the entry cage.
And then, they could both see the creature’s eyes—blinking as they adjusted to the bright lights outside.
“Ahmed Massad!”
The name was familiar, and then al-Kalli realized it was Rafik’s last name, too. “Was he—”
“He’s my brother! Yes, he’s my brother!”
Al-Kalli felt a warming glow. This would explain Rafik’s reluctance for so long, and it impressed al-Kalli as the truth.
But now the beast had lumbered into the opening of the cave. Even after all these years, al-Kalli never failed to be moved by the sight of it. Its massive head, with a long, low snout and large, lizardlike eyes mounted on either side. Its cruel jaws, lined with dozens of sharp incisors, and overhung, like a saber-toothed cat, with two curving fangs.
Rafik was frozen with fear.
The creature smelled him and moved its head, slowly, from side to side. Al-Kalli had never been sure how well the beast could see.
Rafik screamed, but the beast did not react. It had, al-Kalli knew, no visible ears—just triangular holes set well back behind the eyes—though he knew from experience that it could indeed hear. Quite well, in fact.
Rafik whipped around and clutched the bars. “Let me out!” he shouted in Arabic. “In the name of Allah, let me out!” His hands clenched the metal so forcefully, al-Kalli noticed, that the knuckles had turned as white as ivory.
“First,” al-Kalli said, taking a deliberate pause, “I’ll need to know more.”
The beast had moved its forequarters out of the cave now and was standing on the lip of the rocky ledge. It was, in al-Kalli’s estimation, a prize beyond compare. The size of an overgrown rhinoceros—and a very large and strong one at that—the creature was covered with scales, the kind you might see on a snake. Black, but with a dull green undercast that made them flash in the sun. Under this artificial lighting, that effect was not as pronounced.
“What? What else do you want to know?”
“I want to know,” al-Kalli said, drawing out his words, “where this brother of yours—this Ahmed Massad—lives now.”
“I don’t know!” Rafik cried, “I don’t!”
“That’s too bad.”
The creature stepped forward on its stout front legs, longer than its rear legs, an anomaly that gave it the appearance of always rising up. As if perpetually lifting its fearful head in search of prey.
Which was not, al-Kalli knew, inaccurate. When well, when it had lived with its companions in the desert heat of Iraq, the beast had been a mighty and voracious predator. It could, and would, kill anything that came within its range. Al-Kalli had personally seen it attack and devour everything from a water buffalo to a hippopotamus with frightening dispatch.
Except when it wanted to play.
Like the cat whose fangs it shared, the beast sometimes liked to taunt its prey, to play with it and wear it down, before suddenly tiring of the game and slashing it to pieces.
Now, it hesitated on the ledge, its legs splayed out from its body, like a crocodile’s, before deciding which way to leap.
“No idea?” al-Kalli said.
Rafik was staring at the monster, speechless now.
“Then I’d run if I were you,” al-Kalli advised, softly, in Arabic. He didn’t want the game to end too soon.
The creature sprang, like a lizard, off the ledge and landed on all fours with a loud thud. Dust plumed up around its broad clawed feet. Its long reptilian tail swished first one way, and then the other, in the dirt. Like a broom, it flicked some crumbling bones to one side; the pieces rattled as they rolled along the ground.
The beast knew where Rafik was now, and it slithered forward, its fanged head still held high. Among its scales sprouted incongruous clumps of filthy hair.
Rafik saw it coming and took al-Kalli’s advice. He suddenly raced from the open cage and ran, naked, for the far end of the enclosure.
The creature turned its head to watch him with one large, unblinking eye.
Was it hungry at last, al-Kalli wondered? Would it feed again?
Rafik was frantic, leaping at the white-tiled wall that surrounded the enclosure to shoulder height; above that, thick steel bars rose much higher, higher than he would ever be able to climb . . . or to hold himself. Each time he fell, he whirled around to see where the beast was.
And now it was coming toward him again. Past the wading pool, with its smooth, sandy bottom. Past the stunted olive trees, with their gnarled, barren branches . . .
“Where is he?” al-Kalli called out.
Rafik could barely spit out the words. “Afghanistan.”
“That’s a big place.”
“He went there to fight.”
“Not good enough.”
“It’s all I know!” Rafik cried, his voice breaking with fear and anguish.
The beast jerked its head and squirmed forward. Al-Kalli knew it could move slowly . . . and, when it wanted to, as fast as a shot. Over short distances, he had seen it bring down gazelles.
“How will I find him?” al-Kalli said, with weary annoyance. He wanted Rafik to know that he was at the end of his patience.
The beast was close enough now that Rafik had to run again. Would he try to hide in the cave? al-Kalli wondered. No, that would be too absurd; he’d never do that.
Instead, he ran to the taller of the olive trees, leapt into its lower branches, and scrambled, screaming, all the way to its fragile top.
Al-Kalli smiled and turned toward Jakob, who smiled back. They had both seen this particular ploy before . . . and knew how it would turn out.
“How long,” al-Kalli asked, “do you think you’ll be able to stay there?”
Rafik simply screamed again, the other animals in the facility joining in. There were barks and yelps and lonely howls from the other enclosures.
“He has . . .” Rafik started to say, “he has . . .” But he couldn’t finish. The beast had turned and was moving toward the base of the tree.
“He has what?”
“He has a girlfriend!”
“Who?”
“Fatima. Fatima Sayad.”
“And where would I find her?”
“Tikrit!” he wailed in terror, and clung to the swaying branch. “On the Avenue of the Martyrs.”
Al-Kalli glanced back again at Jakob, to make sure he was jotting this down. He was, in a small leather notebook.
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